A Lot Of Babies

"Hi again. It's me, Flat Aggie from California. Remember me? You first met me when Jan and John took me to the Midwest Dairy Expo. It's time for me to share another adventure with Miss Sarah's first grade class, and you too. It's colder in Minnesota, than California, so Jan made me a coat and hat to keep me warm while I helped FEED CALVES!"

This is the calf "hotel." Each calf gets it's own room!

"Daughter Sara and Grandma Karen take care of the calves on the family farm. Each calf lives in it's own pen, in a solar building. The word "solar" means the sun provides the heat and the light for the building. The calves are fed every morning and every evening. Each calf has 2 buckets on the front of their pen, one for milk and one for feed. The calves like to drink warm milk. When they are finished, they get lots of fresh water to drink too. The youngest calves get special feed made from corn, oats and molasses. It smells really good! The older calves get feed without molasses, but they must really like it, because they moo a lot until they get fed!"

 I helped Sara feed calves, after she got home from teaching school.

"Sara and Grandma also keep the building clean. They sweep the floor everyday, and give the calves clean straw to lay on. This keeps them clean and comfortable so they stay healthy. And just like people, if a calf does get sick, they get medicine. That's one of Grandma's jobs. The farm also has visits from the veterinarian (animal doctor) to make sure the animals stay healthy. In the last 14 days, 15 calves have been born! That's a lot of babies!"

Grandma Karen and I with a 1-day-old calf.

Flat Aggie From California

Perhaps you have heard the story of Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Stanley is a young man who wakes up one morning to discover he has been flattened while he was sleeping. Yes flat...as a pancake (only thinner, like paper.) Imagine the adventures you could have if you were small enough to stow away in an envelope to see the world. Stanley did just that! Now think about what a great way this would be to learn about agriculture around the United States. Sarah's blog, House Ag Built along with her first grade students, constructed Flat Aggie (Agriculture, cute, huh?) to visit farms to learn every thing they can through the eyes of Aggie. I invited Flat Aggie to visit our dairy farm in Minnesota. Here is the first of our adventures that I am sharing with Sarah and her first graders.

Flat Aggie went to the Midwest Dairy Expo with John and I. This is one place farmers can go to learn more about being a great farmer and about the newest farm machinery and supplies. Flat Aggie really liked this big plastic cow at the Dairy Farmers of America booth. Aggie learned that the milk from our farm is sold to Kemps, which makes it into yummy ice cream. 

After a tasty ice cream snack, we visited the Midwest Dairy booth. Barb, Jodi, and Sami explained to Flat Aggie that dairy farmers get paid to sell their cows milk and a little money each month goes to Midwest Dairy to advertise how important it is to have dairy foods every day to keep our teeth and bones strong and healthy. Midwest Dairy also teaches people how dairy farmers, like us, care for our animals and our land.

After a busy day, Flat Aggie was getting pretty worn out. His tired little feet couldn't hardly walk another step, but wow, you should have seen him perk up when he saw the sparkly crown on Princess Kay of the Milky Way, Christine Reitsma. She spends many days traveling around Minnesota, representing Minnesota Dairy farmers, to help share our story about how much we love what we do to make delicious milk for everyone to enjoy! (I think Flat Aggie would have liked a little kiss from Princess Kay, but he was too shy to ask.)

Flat Aggie was so sleepy from our long day, he slept all the way home. But he is so excited to help with calf feeding and cow milking tomorrow! Stay tuned!